Shout some critique, good or bad my way. I'll take everything into consideration.
I opened Hammer for the first time about a week before I made this, experimented a bit and spent the weekend making what's in the video above.
It's not perfect, and it really doesn't have a purpose outside experimentation. Nevertheless one must start at some point.
Now, it is actually quite optimized. (Nearly) everything is aligned with the 16 x 16 grid, all the brushes are made with the nodraw texture where only the visible faces are texturized after and I've placed a lot of area_portals and hint nodes 'round and about.
Everything from 3:17 in the video is unfinished (much more so then the first part of the video) so feel free to ignore that stuff.
I've tried focusing on creating an ambient atmosphere, so audio is an important part. Make sure you can hear some of the audio.

The bits about optimisation on Valve Developer Wiki go overboard. The stuff about func_detailing, areaportals and lighting are useful, but religiously making every nonvisible surface nodraw is not. The tiny gains you get in performance aren't worth the extra tedium.

If you focus too much on optimisation in the early stages, you'll not get anything done. (Of course that's not to say you should start carving spheres and making a hollow cube skybox)

I really like religiously making every surface nodraw, it makes it easier for me to orient myself within the map. It really isn't much trouble for me so I won't quit with that.
That and func_detailing is generally the only steps I take when I start making a map, and I do get shit done.
Though admittedly I have a weak-spot for fancy lighting, so I'm not very conservative about it. I can be a bit obsessive about getting nice lighting at the sacrifice of the performance.

I really like religiously making every surface nodraw, it makes it easier for me to orient myself within the map. It really isn't much trouble for me so I won't quit with that.
That and func_detailing is generally the only steps I take when I start making a map, and I do get shit done.

The extra time it will take increases exponentially with the complexity of your map.

Shout some critique, good or bad my way. I'll take everything into consideration.
I opened Hammer for the first time about a week before I made this, experimented a bit and spent the weekend making what's in the video above.
It's not perfect, and it really doesn't have a purpose outside experimentation. Nevertheless one must start at some point.
Now, it is actually quite optimized. (Nearly) everything is aligned with the 16 x 16 grid, all the brushes are made with the nodraw texture where only the visible faces are texturized after and I've placed a lot of area_portals and hint nodes 'round and about.
Everything from 3:17 in the video is unfinished (much more so then the first part of the video) so feel free to ignore that stuff.
I've tried focusing on creating an ambient atmosphere, so audio is an important part. Make sure you can hear some of the audio.

Edited:

It's nice, I like it. It does however have a paper-y vibe to it, I can see you used 'water paper' in Photoshop.

I cant believe there are currently no comments on your video.

In all my time being here, I have yet to see someone pick up hammer so fast and create something so genuinely unique. Its beautiful. The trains arriving from nowhere seem to make me go "What? Where did that just..." You have a bright future ahead of you. Keep making maps the way you do.

In all my time being here, I have yet to see someone pick up hammer so fast and create something so genuinely unique. Its beautiful. The trains arriving from nowhere seem to make me go "What? Where did that just..." You have a bright future ahead of you. Keep making maps the way you do.

Shout some critique, good or bad my way. I'll take everything into consideration.
I opened Hammer for the first time about a week before I made this, experimented a bit and spent the weekend making what's in the video above.
It's not perfect, and it really doesn't have a purpose outside experimentation. Nevertheless one must start at some point.
Now, it is actually quite optimized. (Nearly) everything is aligned with the 16 x 16 grid, all the brushes are made with the nodraw texture where only the visible faces are texturized after and I've placed a lot of area_portals and hint nodes 'round and about.
Everything from 3:17 in the video is unfinished (much more so then the first part of the video) so feel free to ignore that stuff.
I've tried focusing on creating an ambient atmosphere, so audio is an important part. Make sure you can hear some of the audio.

Edited:

It's nice, I like it. It does however have a paper-y vibe to it, I can see you used 'water paper' in Photoshop.

impressive, remember to add suffix _hdr to your skybox texture name to get rid of the stretching

From what I've read about HDR skyboxes you should turn up the shutter speed of the skybox a bit and add redder tones to the sand.
Stronger, more defiant and vibrant tones would do the sand good I believe.

Well, I don't know the exact term, but I'm pretty sure you can change the exposure or something similar with an HDR Skybox, correct me if I'm wrong.
That said, it's not exactly shutter speed but...
Haha I get what you mean, but you can really adjust it without changing the file itself or the entire maps lighting. And wouldnt you mean either ISO or apeture, and not shutter speed? haha